Assessing the Governance of Digital Contact Tracing in Response to COVID-19: Results of a Multi-National Study

This paper describes the results of a multi-country survey of governance approaches for the use of digital contact tracing (DCT) in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. We argue that the countries in our survey represent two distinct models of DCT governance, both of which are flawed. The "data p...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Journal of law, medicine & ethics medicine & ethics, 2022-01, Vol.50 (4), p.791-804
Main Authors: Hutler, Brian, Blasimme, Alessandro, Gur-Arie, Rachel, Ali, Joseph, Barnhill, Anne, Hood, Amelia, Kahn, Jeffrey, Perkins, Nancy L, Regenberg, Alan, Vayena, Effy
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Accountability
Cellular telephones
Consortia
Contact Tracing
COVID-19
COVID-19 - epidemiology
COVID-19 - prevention & control
Disease transmission
Epidemics
Governance
Health education
Humans
Infectious diseases
Legislation
Medical ethics
Pandemics
Pandemics - prevention & control
Personal information
Privacy
Public Health
Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2
Surveillance
Transparency
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:This paper describes the results of a multi-country survey of governance approaches for the use of digital contact tracing (DCT) in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. We argue that the countries in our survey represent two distinct models of DCT governance, both of which are flawed. The "data protection model" emphasizes privacy protections at the expense of public health benefit, while the "emergency response model" sacrifices transparency and accountability, prompting concerns about excessive governance surveillance. The ethical and effective use of DCT in the future requires a new governance approach that is better suited to this novel use of mobile phone data to promote public health."
ISSN:1073-1105
1748-720X
DOI:10.1017/jme.2023.20